We recently ordered new carpet from the Home Depot. Turns out they will come out and install your carpet for $37.00 after you spend $500.00. We are doing our living room, hallway, and both upstairs bedrooms (and walk-in closets) Obviously we hit the $500.00 so we are looking forward to August when they come install our beautiful new carpet. We quickly found out that carpeting the stairs costs extra. In fact, it would cost over $10.00 a stair on top of the cost of the carpeting to cover them. Since we have 14 stairs, we decided against getting them carpeted. In turn, we spent more money than that, (My husband elected for the easy route when it came to buying wood for the treads and risers, and of course easier is usually more expensive). But we are very happy with our new stairs, even though we spent more than it would have cost to carpet them.
Here is our stairs with our current carpeting.
Sometimes people rip up their carpet and find real wood underneath. Not us. We had builder-grade fiberboard. First step (after pulling out all those staples) was to cut/grind off the edge of the stairs so they would not have any of a lip/hangover. This proved to be our toughest part with the lower staircase. My husband tried many different hand tools, sanders, and power tools, trying to cut the lip off. Finally he went to Menards and purchased a jig saw, which seemed to do the trick after getting the hang of it. I've only seen people rip up the current treads and risers before putting new ones on, but my husband just wanted to put them over the fiberboard. After he figured out how to cut off the lip, it just became a matter of measuring the boards and cutting them to size. We cut all the risers to size first, and then the treads. Then we stuck the boards into place with all purpose glue and popped a few nails into them with a nail gun. And then....Tah Dah!!!
Here we go! All done. (Well almost.) Still need to cover the nail holes and do a little bit of trim work (mostly on the lower stairs). Little bit of a hint, if you decide to re-do your own stairs, I'd start with the least visible steps first, because you get quite better at it as you go on. :) I would also like to add that my husband doesn't really have any experience with carpentry, but now he is in the mood to build a computer desk. (And I am thinking, just go ahead, he did a marvelous job on the stairs).
